would be to call that spot after him the Isle of Fál. It is needless to say more at present on this subject, as the discussion of the myths associated with the name of Merlin will afford us an opportunity of looking at it from another point of view.
NODENS, NUĐ AND LLUĐ.
The god's Irish name Nuada assumes on Brythonic ground the form of Nodens, genitive Nodentis, to be found in Latin inscriptions, of which more anon. One of the forms in which this survives in Welsh literature is 'Nûᵭ,' but the mythic personage of that name is not known as the subject of any story like that of Nuada, and the more complete counterpart of Nuada is to be recognized in a mythical Welsh king, called Llûᵭ Llawereint, or Llûᵭ of the Silver Hand, where we detect the story in question compressed into the epithet Llawereint, or Silver-handed. It is important to observe that the elements of the compound are differently arranged in the two languages: in Irish, an approach is made, as it were, to Argenteâ Manu, but in Welsh rather to Manu Argenteâ. Now the name Llûᵭ Llawereint, put back to its early form, would be Lôdens Lâm'argentjos, in which one could not help recognizing a modification of Nôdens Lâmargentjos, subjected to the influence of the analogy of personal names with alliterative epithets. Thus, for the Irish Nuada and the inscriptional Nodens, Welsh has, thanks to alliteration, the two names Nûᵭ and Llûᵭ. This latter is well known in English in the name of 'King Lud,' and from the same 'Lluᵭ,' or rather its antecedent Lôdens, come Lothus and the Loth or Lot of the Arthurian romances.
